‘Complexity’ Predicts Nations’ Future Growth

Economists at Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology have just released what they claim to be the crystal ball of economics: a model for predicting a nation’s future growth more accurately than any other techniques out there.

“The Atlas of Economic Complexity” ranks 128 nations based on their “productive knowledge” — the skills, experience and general know-how that a given population acquires in producing certain goods. Countries with a high score in the report’s “economic complexity index” have acquired years of knowledge in making a variety of products and goods and also have lots of room for growth. Essentially, the more collective knowledge a country has in producing goods, the richer it is — or will be.

The 364-page report, a study led by Harvard’s Ricardo Hausmann and MIT’s Cesar A. Hidalgo, is the culmination of nearly five years of research by a team of economists at Harvard’s Center for International Development.